A senior television industry executive recently told me that it is now possible to hold down a high-level post as a mainstream broadcaster and never discuss programmes. Of course, one can obliquely refer to them as "output", and the issues of scheduling and "share" - or ratings - are turned over with the ferocious anxiety of an urban fox in a dustbin.

So it was with something of a jolt, and a limited amount of brouhaha, that the new BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies, ventured an opinion on Carol Smillie's stippling and ruching. He said that he thought perhaps the garden and interior design formats such as Changing Rooms had had their day. And when a man who weekends at a residence as magnificent and aesthetically pleasing as Baggy House ventures an opinion on stencilling, it is as well to listen.

Strictly speaking, the BBC chairman has no role in commenting on programmes - or "output" - and some feel that Davies's comments were only slightly less appropriate than if he had stalked Prince William with a camcorder. But why should he confine himself to the tedious landscape of broad policy when clearly so much of what the BBC has to put in order are its programmes?

The significance of Tessa Jowell's laudable decision to knock back "youth-oriented" BBC3 has been somewhat lost in the dust of the collapsing World Trade towers. But if the government holds its line that the idea of a youth-oriented entertainment channel is adequately catered for elsewhere, it could be seen as an important new chapter for the BBC. Never before has it been prohibited from doing something because it is already done perfectly well elsewhere.

An extension of this principle, backed by a tacit acceptance from the government that the licence fee is sustainable, ought to free the corporation from the shackles of ratings-hunting and return it to the unpopular Birtian flirting with audience "reach". If Jowell prohibited BBC3 because it was too like E4, shouldn't this function of consumer and industry protection extend to mainstream programmes with far higher audiences? What is the difference between telling the BBC not to launch BBC3 and telling it not to launch the Saturday Show against SMTV? Or even not to put the 10 o'clock news against, er, the 10 o'clock news. The difference is that the former is broad policy and the latter is programming.

With the commercial TV industry helter-skeltering into its worst downturn for a decade, there will be some uncomfortable moments for the government in deciding how tightly to hold the BBC's leash. Unlike in the last recession, we no longer have an effective duopoly in the advertising market: ITV and C4 have been joined by Channel 5, the multichannel universe has grown exponentially and the number of homes that can receive it have risen from under 1m to 7m.

With the BBC's income underwritten, it has no business in competing directly with commercial broadcasters through the schedules. It has every right to innovate and to pitch major investment into primetime, but where it does not add to the choice that a non-multichannel home receives, it should have to rethink its programming. This is not a special measures protection clause for the commercial companies, but simply a way of giving viewers better viewing choices.

This is dismissed as simplistic by those in the BBC's upper echelons, who point out that given half a chance ITV would kill the BBC in key primetime slots with major entertainment shows. This is not necessarily a given, as the BBC has proved in the past. A blue-footed Booby frolicking on a beach in the Galapagos can and will beat a poorly conceived quiz show.

It is also the case that the BBC performs rather poorly when it is most concerned about ratings and loses sight of reach. This is why Radio 4 is rather good while BBC1 is rather poor. The wasteland left for Lorraine Heggessey at BBC1, the most costly BBC product, is showing green shoots of recovery, but without the magical three new quality shows in a schedule which signify a successful turnround.

Gavyn Davies's words on the perils of proliferating Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's faux pelmets might have originated in the ultra vires area of programming, but they establish a point of broad policy. The BBC should not be a copyist, but an originator, it should lead rather than compete, and it must accept that it will risk losing peak-time ratings as a result.